First something old I think that has never been posted... text taken from my "whats new page"
This is how my week in August of 2000 went....
Wednesday night found Heather and myself at Englishtown for a wednesday night test 'n tune- it was wall to wall street racers and imports! Time to open a can of whoop ---! The Reliant had a 1/2 hour of running time on the new engine so the first pass was an easy 22 psi of boost (the lowest setting for my new hybrid T3/T4 turbo) I came out of the hole fairly easy not know what to expect- the timing was set retarded 7degrees because of the new fastburn head (I was going to play with the timing a few degrees at a time- retarding it was a pre-caution due to the fast burn heads faster pressure rise) and I didn't know how the turbo was going to spool so I can out of the hole fairly lazy. The car ran 12.0 @ 113 mph with a 1.81 S.T. Everything looked good so the boost was set to 30 psi and I came out of the hole a little more aggressive and the car rapped off a 11.26 at 120.8 with a 1.76 S.T. I was STOKED! and this was with the intercooler hose popping off on the top end beforethe traps!!!!! Man I got 10's in the bag!!! run number three the hose popped off again in the damn burnout box!!!! Run number 4 the car launched ok but the car started breaking up BAD and THEN the intercooler
hose blew once more! ARG!!!
Trailing the car back home I was wondering why the car crapped out on the last pass and when I did a check over the next morning I found the reason- Busted number 1 spark plug ceramic (OUCH!) While I was dwelling on this new problem I came to the conclusion that my double core intercooler was NOT flowing enough air and this was causing the hoses to blow off and it had to be replaced- yet how was I going to get one in time for the import race next week at Cecil County? DOUBLE ARG!! While I was cruising the countryside clearing out every Peterbuilt truck dealer of the superdudybadtotheboneneverblowoff hose clamps a solution hit me- I would reinstall a FACTORY intercooler in the stock location and "Y" into the existing plumbing! YIPPEE! LOL! AND IT WORKED!!!
Well we loaded up the car and Heather and myself headed south to Cecil County friday morning- we were going to hit the track friday night for a test & tune to make sure the car was running perfectly before stomping he crap out of a pack of imports saturday morning... The very first pass the car left HARD and was screaming when at the 1/8 mile the damn car blew off a DIFFERENT hose! damnit! $%^$#^!! It was only pipe I didn't weld a lip onto!! Steve Menegon and myself busted out a pair of vise grips and a file and quickly bent a "lip" onto the offending pipe and reassembled everything in a hurry (I wanted to get back out to the track, Cecil is JAMMING on a friday night)
Aug. 12, 2000 7:14 P.M.
Relentless made a 10.98 pass at 126 mph with a 1.82 S.T! Man what a RIDE! The track feels like it's paved with cobblestones at 3/4 track (unlike e-town which is like driving on plate glass) and the car was vibrating so bad I could barely read the gauges!! I kept thinking "1450-1450-1450" as I watched the EGT gauge and tried to keep the car going in a straight line with the rear of the car dancing around! I swear I could hear Steve a'holloring all the way down at the far end of the track! He was hopping up and down like a 5 year at the starting line after the car broke into the 10's! He-he! The crowd went NUTS! I headed back to the pits to give the car a look over (and make sure all the intercooler hoses where still hanging in there) and wheeled back into staging... I dialed in a littttttle more boost and came out of the hole a tad more aggressive and the car clicked off a picture perfect 10.86 @ 127 with a 1.74 S.T. At that point it was time to call it a night, as I was loading the car for the trip to Steves place a gentlemen in a new 300 pulled up, rolled down his window and uttered the words that would
make the night perfect-
"Man that is one BAD --- car!" =)
Amen brother, amen!
Saturday morning we headed back to the track- Steve was racing his GTC today (New clutch) Mike Marra was there with Contraption, Mike Demoss showed up with his GLHS and there were a few other Shelby Dodges among the imports... Car passed tech no problem (NHRA 10.00 legal thank you very much!) all though the tech inspector asked me what it will run and I told him I was shooting for low 11's today.. He laughed and said are you sure about that? I was here last night!! We both laughed and I explained that I was more interested in test'n tune today then trying to break records- wouldn't you know the damn car made a liar out of me on the first pass by running a 10.92 at 117 mph (a different hose was popped off damnit!) Steve and myself sliced ourselves to death getting the darn hose back on (It's a REAL tight fit and right off the turbo! can you say HOT!!!) For some reason my first pass was not counted as qualification for the FWD quick 8 and I made a second pass- Unfortunately right behind a car with an oil leak that misted the track with oil!! still Relentless was up to the task at hand and ran a 11.2 at 125mph with the slicks spinning well into 2nd gear!! people in the stands were amazed to see a k-car spinning the slicks PAST them in the grandstands out over 150 ft! The time was good enough to give me the number 2 spot on the ladder (Mike Demoss had the number 1 spot by a few hundreds of a second) Well after that we hung out and waited for the Quick 8 to begin, and waited... and waited.... It seems that there wasn't enough cars entered at the track for the sponsors to make the full pay out so they combined the RWD and FWD classes! It figures! There was a low 10 second rotary MG roadster there that day! ahh well anything could happen....
First round had me paired up against a 10.4 RWD Toyota somethingorother with a big wing in the back- ouch! When they called out on the PA that they were sticking us with the faster RWD cars I installed the bottle in the car (thats correct- all passes this weekend were made without NOS) and felt that I could give him a run for the money. As it was they were running a pro tree and it threw both of us off and as luck would have it it was a double bog launch by BOTH of us and HE had the better reaction time but Relentless recovered first and sprinted like mad to the finish line running 11.5 at 127 to the other racers 12.44 at 132 mph!
Round two had me a paired against a 11.3 VW rabbit (the event sponsor no less) and we haggled over lane choice and I lost the coin toss- A good thing as it turned out as a VW powered roadster puked it's engine in his lane right in front of him! The odds where in my favor with the faster car and better lane now but I wasn't taking any chances as I left him at the tree with a 7 tenths better reaction time and never looked back with a smoking 10.97 @ 127 mph pass.
Round three had me pitted against the darn RWD 10.2 MG roadster- I'd need every trick I could think of to beat this guy! A quick look under the hood of the k-car showed another damn hose coming off! Steve and Mike ran off to get me an extra clamp and we worked like mad to get the hose on tighter and stuff the clamp in- I planned on upping the boost a tad and didn't want to loose the hose! Well to make a long story short I managed to tree the guy but his car pulled an AMAZING 1.49 short time and his car ran a 10.2 @ 132 mph to my losing 10.95 @ 128 mph (33 psi). It was the best I could do and then some but was just totally out tractioned and out powered- I tried hitting the bottle in second gear but it made the car misfire and I shut it down at once to prevent any damage. Still second place was good for a nice trophy and $200 bucks!
Gary
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